The state Department of Transportation released its version of the Tetlin corridor study Tuesday, more than a year after the department shut down the committee that had been preparing the report and took it over.

Here is the final report by Kinney Engineering.

Before DOT Commissioner Ryan Anderson halted the process in 2023, the committee had multiple discussions about when and how the trucks on the Kinross ore-hauling operation would be weighed. State officials assured the committee that the trucks would be weighed, often more than once.

The trucks would be weighed at the mine site by the mine owner and then at DOT weigh stations in Tok, on the Richardson Highway near Fairbanks and at Fox, whenever those stations were open. The clear impression given by state officials was that all the trucks would be weighed at some point.

But it appears clear now that the Dunleavy administration never had any intention of weighing all the trucks and made no effort to do so, an issue that is particularly relevant given the wear and tear on highways and bridges.

The heavy-handed intervention is clear in the work of its consultant, releasing a final report that opposes the idea of extending the hours of state weigh stations and weighing every truck.

The Transportation Advisory Committee included a cross-section of government, village, industry and public members from along the 247-mile route between Tetlin and Fort Knox. The state shut it down a year ago to stifle critics of the Kinross trucking plan. The group was supposed to be independent.

State officials were irked that a couple of members of the Transportation Advisory Committee—a group that in theory has about 30 members, though many didn’t participate—were part of a lawsuit about the ore-hauling project and “are actively involved against the state,” in the words of an email from DOT Commissioner Anderson on November 11, 2023.

The Dunleavy administration claimed that all critics of the project on the TAC were part of the lawsuit, which was not true.

Meanwhile, on October 31 this year, the department put an 80-ton limit on the Chena flood control bridge near North Pole because an “unacceptable” number of trucks had exceeded an 81.4-ton agreement with the state, according to the final consultant’s report.

But the weigh stations are not open all the time. And an unknown number of trucks are not being weighed, so no one knows exactly how many trucks exceeded the 162,815-pound weight limit.

The Dunleavy administration made no plans to increase the staffing at weigh stations and keep at least one of them between Tetlin and Fort Knox open 24 hours a day.

The governor did not ask the Legislature for added funds and the consultant claims it is not possible to do anything about it. It is possible.

The consultant’s report says “there are periods during the day in which trucks are not subject to being weighed because ARS (Alaska, Richardson, Steese highways) corridor scales are not staffed. In order to ensure full compliance with weight limits by the ore haul and other trucks, at least one or more of the ARS weigh stations would have to be open all hours of the day.”

The report says the state can’t get 24-hour coverage, even though that “would incentivize trucking firms to always comply with weight limits.”

“Expanding weigh station hours is not possible at this time because of funding and staff recruitment constraints. Furthermore, under current practice, the ARS weigh stations would not be prioritized over the other ones on the state highway systems. Any increase in funding or staff would be allocated to all system weigh stations.”

Had this transportation planning committee been allowed to survive, there is no way the final report would have opposed a 24-hour weigh station.

The weigh stations are open on an intermittent basis at different times during the day. In parts of the state, the stations are open up to 16 hours a day.

But even when the scales are staffed, the weigh stations may be closed, Carlos Rojas, the chief of commercial vehicle compliance, told the contractor. The staff may be doing inspections on trucks if deficiencies have been found.

“This method of scale operation may contribute to the public perception that scales are not staffed when the signs display ‘CLOSED,’” Kinney Engineering said.

It would take about 30 new employees to run the nine weigh stations across the state 24 hours a day, the report said. There are about 30 positions that are currently funded.

Kinney Engineering, perhaps speaking for the Dunleavy administration, said it would not be possible to expand the hours of the weigh stations between Tetlin and Fort Knox without expanding the hours elsewhere. The report does not explain why this is assumed to be impossible.

From October 1, 2023 until October 14 this year, the weigh stations along the route weighed nearly 6,000 ore-haul trucks during the limited hours the weigh stations were operating. About 17.7 percent of the Black Gold Transport trucks were overweight, the report said.

That means that more than 1,000 of the sample of ore-haul trucks weighed were overloaded, exceeding the maximum of 162,815 pounds the state said should be the upper limit for the Chena flood control bridge. Most of the trucks were 500 to 1,000 pounds overweight.

There are roughly 22,000 truckloads per year for the ore-haul operation, so only about 27 percent of the trucks were weighed.

The state claims that since the weigh stations are not open on a set schedule, the 6,000 trucks that were weighed are assumed to represent a random sample of the total ore-haul traffic.

The problem with that assumption is that the ore-haul trucks are running round-the-clock and the company can get real-time reports on when the weigh stations are open or closed, which makes this approach far less random than claimed.

While the report mentions that 17.7 percent of the trucks for Kinross weighed at one of three state weigh stations were overweight, it also says that 12 percent of the trucks weighed at the Richardson weigh station were overweight.

“The data and analysis above show that 12% of B-Trains (ore-haul trucks) in the past 12 and 1/2 months are over the 162,815 pounds limit is allowed on Bridge 1364. (Chena flood control bridge) This resulted in the Chena flood control Bridges being posted at 80 tons,” the report says.

But Kinney Engineering made a mistake here in assuming that the limited number of trucks weighed at the Richardson weigh station were the only trucks crossing the Chena bridge. It would be logical to use the 17.7 percent figure as that represents the data gathered from the three weigh stations along the route.

This is an example of the jargon-heavy language and inconsistent conclusions that should have been removed from the document during the many months it spent in limbo.

In any case, the estimate that nearly one out of five trucks was overweight over the past year is an indictment of the Dunleavy “say yes to everything” approach.

Your contributions help support independent analysis and political commentary by Alaska reporter and author Dermot Cole. Thank you for reading and for your support. Either click here to use PayPal or send checks to: Dermot Cole, Box 10673, Fairbanks, AK 99710-0673.

Write me at dermotmcole@gmail.com.